The Fall of the Vatican

Well, it is maybe not exactly the Fall of the Roman Catholic Empire just yet, I do enjoy writing a dramatic title for dramatic purposes, but I do think this is another of a long, steady decline of the Catholic Church. I am of course referring to the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI. The full text of his resignation here. I think very little of him, even though I do share his love of cats and Mozart. I suspect that he is getting senile. I should be happy about his resignation, which shows that the choice of a pope has nothing to do with any higher power: if he had been chosen by God, then God would have made him strong enough to carry on until his death. Ratzinger was chosen because he was a staunch dogmatic Catholic, because he embodied the contempt for modernity and humanism the Catholic Church has. But I learned that cardinal Marc Ouellet, from Québec, might become the next pope. And I was less happy. Because Ouellet is maybe worse than Ratzinger, more backward and as he is younger he would also spout his rubbish for longer. I often blogged about him in French over the years, it is ironic now that he makes front news.

On Facebook, reacting to the news, my youngest brother said: ''Delenda Vatican'', which is a pseudo Latin rephrasing of the old maxim by Cato the Elder. ''The Vatican must be destroyed''. Figuratively of course, I wouldn't destroy the Sistine Chapel. It is a good enough invocation to count as a great unknown line. Whoever the next pope will be, there is little chance he will modernize the institution, will start a real, honest dialogue with secular humanists (considered at best suspiciously by the Church) or by atheists like myself (Ouellet finds us dangerous), will start considering women and homosexuals as human beings or will genuinely try to make amend for the sex crimes many of their priests committed with the complicity of the institution. I fear Benedict XVI might be the lesser evil. So yes, Delenda Vatican, you bet.

The visitor

So guess who is in the UK? Well the pope of course! And he came here to "extend the hand of friendship", but still warns the Brits against "more agressive forms of secularism". I think he was talking about guys like me. Ironic, considering all the ills religious fundamentalism did in recent years that he thinks secularism is a threat.

Still, since pope Benedict and I have two things in common, I cannot despise him as much as I wished.

So I share two things with the pope?

There are days like this. I discovered that I have two things in common with the current pope. Reading about his interests in the Wikipedia page, I discovered that he loves classical music, particularly Mozart, who is by far is favourite composer, and that he loves cats! More about it here. On Mozart, you can read here.

I know that had to be expected from a man of his generation, but still, I was shocked. I should not, personal tastes are after all not exclusive tastes. And there is something both divinely and devilishly ironic about such an austere man admiring a musician who was as a person very vulgar, fond of scatological humour and as far as we know pretty similar to Shaffer's "obscene child". Sure, Mozart was also a good little Catholic, but that changes nothing to his vulgarity, or the very sensual nature of a lot of his music. So pope Benedict admires the composer of Don Giovanni, an opera where you root for its anti-hero, who is a murderous libertine, unrepenting even when threatened of eternal torments. I am suddenly wondering if the pope might not be a bit of a Salieri...

As for his love for cats, I just hope it can help him see animals in a more respectful way than many religious people do. At least he must have proper respect for felines. And he should, as they are superior creatures. But I guess Benedict would not go that far.

Sans le latin...

Puisque ma femme et moi nous nous rendons à un baptême, autant faire un billet religieux pour commencer la fin de semaine. J'ai appris sur le site de la BBC qu'on essaie de redonner de l'importance au latin au Vatican. Alors, voilà, il y a une section du site du Vatican en latin. J'ai toujours été très limité dans cette langue, mais le traditionaliste que je suis en est heureux, surtout que la liturgie en latin est très facile à suivre. Et puis, Georges Brassens aurait approuvé. Étant donné les circonstances, je crois que cette chanson s'impose:

Brassens Tempête dans un bénitier
Uploaded by mereduchesne